Raise the Hammer

Comment 121443

Thanks, JimC, you're right on cue to demonstrate precisely the absurd and irrational dysfunctionalism Maureen was writing about.

I'm against having to pay two fares to travel to Stoney Creek when I used to pay one.

Metrolinx has made it clear that fares will be integrated with HSR.

I'm against having to wait for a second mode of travel when I could just sit on a warm bus.

LRT will run between McMaster and Eastgate. I'm not sure where you're going but 14 km is a lot of complete trips, and most people who will have to transfer onto LRT already have to transfer onto the B-Line.

I'm against the 60% increase in traffic along Aberdeen.

That was a worst-case estimate, not a likely outcome. The same analysis concluded that overall traffic congestion gets worse without rapid transit.

I'm against advocating for the developers downtown like Tyler Pearson and Darko Vranich.

So you prefer advocating for the suburban developers who have been destroying the wilderness and farmland you claim to love?

Development is going to happen. The question is: will that development build the city up or out?

I'm against the gentrification that is being touted as "economic uplift" when I know only the rich will be uplifted

Stagnation is not an affordable housing policy. Without investment, our existing stock of housing continues to degenerate and units gradually become uninhabitable.

the poor will be left holding higher hydro bills (we sold a public entity for this) and higher rents.

Ontario hydro bills have been increasing in recent years because the government has invested billions of dollars in rebuilding our generation and transmission capacity after decades of underinvestment and artificially low prices. It is not at all clear that the partial sale of Hydro One will will have an impact on hydro rates in the future.

I'm against losing unionized HSR jobs to a private consortium.

Efforts are already underway among LRT supporters to try and ensure that the operators are unionized. Unlike you, project supporters are actively working to make it better.

I'm against spending public dollars to enrich private interests like property holders who have already said they can't wait to increase rents and condo prices

What they're saying is that they want to build more housing of various types and price points, as well as more commercial space along the LRT corridor.

Even they admit that the LRT has nothing to do with transit.

No one is literally saying LRT has nothing to do with transit. Land use and transportation are closely tied: the kind of public transporation infrastructure the cities build shapes the kind of land use that takes place.

If we focus on roads and highways, we get car-dependent, low-density sprawl and urban disinvestment (so much for the poor people you claim to care about).

If we focus on rapid transit, we get transit-oriented, higher-density mixed use development that provides a wider variety of living and working arrangements, including increasing accesibility to homes and jobs for people who can't - or would rather not - drive.

I'm against removing bike lanes

This is literally the 24th time you have made this ridiculous claim, and it's still bullshit. The City and Metrolinx have both confirmed that we will end up with a bike lane netowrk that is at least as good, and preferably better, than what we have now.

I literally won't be able to ride my bike to Westdale anymore.

Ugh, enough. Seriously, go find something better to do than continuously posting the same debunked, false claims over and over again.